Battered and Whipped: Cake Gallery

I've decorated many cakes in my time--I actually worked in a retail bakery for about 3 years. There I learned the magic of quick icers and couplers, the techniques for making frosting flowers, how to make the best chopped cheese bread, how to proof bread dough, and how to tell when cookies were perfectly baked even without a timer (our oven timer was broken the majority of the time I worked there. We carried around little kitchen timers that had the tendency to break as well and get stuck under things).

I also learned that slapping gobs of frosting from a giant bucket onto previously frozen, mass produced cake layers was not my thing.

There's a saying that you should find work doing what you love, but it seems that sometimes the things you love are better left as a hobby. Making treats for my boyfriend, family, and friends provides me much more satisfaction than making treats for customers who complain that you used the wrong type of butterfly cupcake picks in their cake, that they want samples of something other than whatever is being sampled on the counter, that they need an amazing wedding cake...by tomorrow morning, that another store has the same cake for waaaaay cheaper (can you tell I'm just a little bitter haha--good thing I got out when I did). With that said, if I had to rely on retail cakes for birthdays, I would probably be picky too, but working in that type of environment just isn't for everyone.

Here is a collection of photos of some of my homemade cakes from over the past few years that I created for various occasions in my free time, in no particular order. Although I'm not including recipes for these ones, the pictures will give you an idea of the types of cakes I do, because believe me, I will be making plenty of cakes in the future, with recipes and lots of pictures!